In this Nov. 22, 2011 file photo, Joe Lubbers, left, and Rick McKee display a sign opposing union limiting 'right-to-work' legislation in front of the Statehouse in Indianapolis. Michigan passed a right-to-work law this month.

While some pundits are already busy speculating about who will run for president in 2016, what happened in Michigan this week makes the elections of 2013 and 2014 much more interesting as indicators of where the country is headed politically.

The decision by Michigan's lame-duck GOP legislature to ram through a right-to-work law -- in the cradle of organized labor, no less -- is one of the most audacious political acts I've ever seen. Right-to-work means that you can't be required to join a union or pay union dues in order to get or hold a job. What happened in Michigan no doubt will energize efforts by the business community and Republican activists to make other traditional union states embrace right-to-work. In fact, a grassroots movement is already underway in Ohio, where I live, to put a constitutional amendment doing that on the ballot in November.

You can argue that the action making Michigan the 24th right-to-work state was a tit-for-tat reaction to labor's failed attempt in November to get collective bargaining rights written into the state constitution - that labor leaders "over-reached" and it came back to bite them. For an even better example of overreaching, you only have to look at Michigan's neighbor to the south.

In Ohio, after taking total control of the legislature and the governorship, Republicans in early 2011 enacted a law sharply curbing collective-bargaining rights of state and local government workers, including police and firefighters. It caused a firestorm. Organized labor poured $30 million into the state in support of a referendum to overturn the law.

Labor fought back

Ohioans were bombarded with ads showing houses burning down and burglars running amok while firefighters and police, their meager resources thin, were preoccupied on the other side of town.

The referendum won easily. The popularity of newly elected GOP Gov. John Kasich dropped so far that he still hasn't recovered. Now, neither Kasich nor GOP lawmakers in Ohio have the slightest interest in seeing a right-to-work initiative put on the ballot. (Michigan Republicans were smart enough to exempt police and firefighters, but that hasn't tempered the unions' outrage.)

So is this just a political issue, or is there a convincing economic case to be made either pro or con? The problem is that most studies assessing the impact of such laws come from organizations or individuals with an ax to grind. Business groups argue that right-to-work states encourage job growth because not only can companies there survive, they also can afford to hire more people. Labor groups argue that closed-shop states keep wages and benefits higher and give workers the chance to cling to a shrinking middle-class lifestyle.

Good for economy?

There's anecdotal evidence, of course, to support both views. The Wall Street Journal, for example, reported this year that when Caterpillar closed a union plant in Canada, it offered jobs to workers at a Muncie, Ind., plant at about half the wage paid in Ontario. But the question from a business perspective then becomes, is it better to have a job at $17 an hour in Muncie, or a minimum-wage job of $7.25, or no job at all?

The economic aspects of right-to-work might be fuzzy, but the political aspects are crystal clear. Democrats depend heavily on organized labor for money and foot soldiers. Unions are declining in the private sector, where they represent 6.9 percent of workers. They are growing in the public sector, representing 37 percent of workers, but public employees' generous benefits, especially long-term pension obligations, threaten to bankrupt state and local governments.

For Republicans, their sizable majority in governorships and state legislatures offers the best chance they've had in a generation to undercut the clout of organized labor. It is not a coincidence that a map showing right-to-work states looks eerily similar to a map showing states won by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, or that Republican gains in Rust Belt states have resulted in efforts to diminish union power. Both reflect the sharpening red state-blue state geographical divide.

Conveniently, the elections of 2013 and especially 2014 will tell us whether the Republicans are as smart as they apparently consider themselves to be.

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Don Campbell column: 'Right to work' laws can bite back

While some pundits are already busy speculating about who will run for president in 2016, what happened in Michigan this week makes the elections of 2013 and 2014 much more interesting as indicators

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